Prescriptions

Prescriptions

I have to hand in my prescription

Because I’m now taking pills

For most of my ills

Of every shape size and description

There are blue ones and green ones

                                  And red ones and yellow                               

                                 And pink ones and white ones                               

And large ones to swallow

Some pills are long

And some pills are round

So you don’t get them wrong

Their colours abound

The results are beyond my prediction……….

September Skies - Published Cambridge News 15 and 25 October 2013

September Skies

Great burgeoning clouds with indigo base

Armada of galleons sailing on high
Endless succession in stately procession
Proudly parading across the sky

Tumultuous shapes in towering billows

Gilt edged lace expanding frills
Exploding from colossal  pillows
Mushrooming vapour and ephemeral hills  

Dancing a continuous slow quadrille

Serenely moving with changing shapes
Bellying  full of glittering raindrops
Are cumulous mountains and valleys and lakes

With ominous approaching  threat

Dark treacherous shadow from horizons advance

           Then spreading dazzling fanned out rays           

          Miraculous sunlight will through this lance            

And from this black and menacing cloud

A vivid arc of rainbow glows
With  brilliant sunlight refracting the colour
By magic as if from no where arose

Dragonflies before your eyes

Dragonflies Before Your Eyes

My garden has two dragonflies

Whizzing to and fro

Sunlight glinting on their wings

With dazzling colour glows

With camera held I’m watching them

To see where they will go.

In silhouette against the sky

First one tries my washing line

On tiptoe I can have a  try

And got a picture just in time.

Then  breath abated I sat and waited

For where the next will settle

A challenging photo this could be

To put me on my mettle

And now at last he’s come to rest

And taken up the perfect pose

Where I can get that picture best

 *

He’s perching neatly on my toes

Gathering in the Harvest - Published Cambridge News 5 9 2013

Gathering in the Harvest

The grind and the roar and the column of dust 

Boiling up like a storm

The combine with invincible thrust

Is shearing it way through the corn

From its jaws the riches pour

Rotating reel and scissored teeth

While whirling mass of harvest chaff

Is spewing out beneath

Reaped and winnowed and threshed in one

Along the chute the grain cascades

This liquid gold collects in hold

Gathered in by flashing blades

He’s riding high above the turmoil

Controlling this colossal beast

Driving in insulated capsule

Harvesting the country’s feast

  *

And all alone bewildered hare

                With ears alert will pause to stare                  

Gazing at the field around

His land laid waste is stripped and bare

Seagulls - Published Cambridge News 1 October 2013

Seagulls

The atmosphere filled with shrilling cries

Piercing the tractor’s labouring growl

Strident and racous they're filling the skies

As it strains to turn the heavy ground

Line after line of glistening furrow

Shining ridges of new turned soil

With shrieking clouds of gulls that follow

And trail in the wake of the tractor’s toil

Their intricate pattern in constant shift

They rise and whirl in upwards swirl

Gliding and riding the wind as they lift

Then  swoop and dive and wings unfurl

Together they squawk and squabble and bicker

Vying  for worms as the rich earth turns

With sunlight catching on wings that flicker

They jostle and fight as the ploughshare churns

With angry beaks and yellow feet

And glinting light on flashing wings

They fiercely compete over scraps to eat

Feasting the harvest the turned earth brings

A revolving flotilla they wheel and bank

Curving their wings and gracefully slide

Spread feet and tails to break the descent

Cupping the air as they downwards glide

They circle and settle and soar again

Continuous complex dance they weave

Moving in sinuous billowing cloud

Reaping the bounty the tractors leave

Tantalizing Butterflies (click cursor over a photo for details of image)

Photographing Butterflies
                   ***

Photographing butterflies

That briefly pause then flutter on

An infuriating exercise

Alighting there but not for long

You take a breath – away it flies

A most frustrating enterprise

You raise the lens and then they’re gone

They’re passing right before our eyes

This image I’d immortalize

But the butterflies just carry on

They hover flit and tantalize

From that mystic world where they belong
And all our skills will utilize 

And all our photos jeopardize

So thus our pictures turn out wrong!

Whoever tries  can sympathize

And if they fail – will empathize

                      ***

While the butterflies just cruise  along

                                                                      

        

Feather for Two

 

 

 

Feather for Two

When walking together

They found a feather

Of iridescent hue

Brilliant scintillating blue

Which floated from heaven

This azure treasure

And this marvel of beauty shared

From their love of nature around

For the same things they cared

All the wonder that them surround

And this their two hearts tether